Making the administrative records of HIAS available to the public

HIAS archives

Today we sent 234 completed boxes to off-site storage, about 4 months of work for the HIAS archives project team. Included in this shipment are files from the Executive office, including Executive Vice-President Karl Zukerman; Government Relations files; and files from the Immigration Representation Department. Most of these files are from the 1980s and 1990s.

47 carts of boxes were shrink wrapped before being loaded onto the truck

Now we have room on the shelves to bring in the boxes remaining to be processed. We expect almost all of this last group of files to be from the offices and departments that worked directly to bring refugees to the United States and to ensure they were resettled in welcoming communities that were prepared to provide necessary services as they transitioned to life in America – English classes, citizenship classes, help with apartments and jobs and schools.

Some of the boxes coming in are from the Matching Grant department, arranging for the funding from government grants and distributing it to the communities who took in refugees. Other files we expect will be correspondence between the New York office and the overseas offices, arranging documents and visas and transportation for new HIAS clients.

We’ll be sharing what we find in these new boxes as we uncover more treasures from HIAS’ history.

Now that the HIAS Archives processing project is in the home stretch, we have a chance to sit down, go through our notes, and share some gems we’ve found along the way!

We’ve learned a great many things about the inner-workings of non-profit organizations, such as administrative structures, the best ways to increase membership numbers, the right way to write a business letter, and how re-branding your logo can revitalize everything.

Please enjoy this quick post, which highlights several of the more simple, creative, and unique examples of HIAS’ logos and letterhead evolution from one of their first logos in 1914 to their most recent logo from 2018.

The American Jewish Historical Society’s HIAS project team recently completed processing on records of the Administration and Government Relations Department of the 1980s. The records cover the years 1982-1990. This post will take a look at how the records are organized.

But first, what was the Administration and Government Relations Department? You wouldn’t be alone if you assumed the two parts of the name must have had something to do with each other—some of us did too. But looking at the records, we found that the “Administration” part actually referred to the administrative functions of the entire agency. Yes, we’re talking about dealing with switchboard problems, setting policy, ordering computers, managing office renovations, evaluating workflow in the mailroom, etc.

The Government Relations part is a bit more interesting, and thankfully represents the bulk of the materials. The federal government was involved in every step in the process of refugee migration to the United States, from the moment a person applied for refugee status, to the time they stepped off the plane. Because of this, HIAS’ relationship with the government agencies responsible for oversight and implementation of the US refugee program was an essential one. The Government Relations department’s role was to establish and maintain a system of frequent and extensive contact with a wide range of entities in Washington, D.C. More on this in a future blog post.

As with other departments, Administration and Government Relations maintained their records alphabetically by subject file, in one to two year chunks. Here is how the records are arranged:

1982 The first set of folders belonged to Karl Zukerman, who at this time served as Assistant Executive Vice President. They are from 1982 and are labeled A-I . So the first folder in this group contains materials related to the American Council of Voluntary Agencies for Foreign Service (predecessor to InterAction), while the last relates to Indochinese Refugees. Folders for J-Z subjects are not present unfortunately.

1982-1983 The next set of Zukerman’s files is for a two year chunk, 1982-1983. For this group we have letters A-U, which is likely the full set of folders, since there weren’t many subjects beginning with letters V-Z. Yay! But you might be wondering, why is there an 82-83 set of folders, and a set of 82 folders by themselves? The reason is that the two sets had two different owners, or “creators” as archival science refers to them. For example, the set of A-I folders from 1982 could have been inherited by Zukerman from the prior staffer in that role. Alternatively, they could have been maintained by Zukerman’s assistant, while the 82-83 set belonged to him. Or, one set could have been what we might consider “general department files” to which multiple staffers contributed materials. It all depends on how the department was organized and what sort of filing scheme met the needs of that group of people.

A two year chunk makes sense because it means keeping recent documents close for when they are needed, while still being a manageable amount of stuff to keep right in the office. At the end of the two years, the files were probably boxed up and brought to the Central Files department. At that point, they were not as close as before, but close enough that one could still retrieve items as needed, probably with the assistance of a staff member in Files. After some period of time in Central Files, records were boxed up again and sent to warehouse storage.

1984 Here again we have one year of files. And again, only folders A-I are present! We do not have an explanation for this. In these materials we see Phillip A. Saperia come on as Director of Planning and Government Relations in June of 1984. He appears to have inherited the files previously kept by Zukerman. So memos, correspondence, notes, etc. addressed to or from both men are present here.

1985-1986 For this period, subjects A-U are covered, just like 82-83. During this time, HIAS reorganized the administrative functions of the agency. In these materials we see that in February or 1986, Saperia’s title changes from Director of Planning and Government Relations to Director of Administration and Government Relations.

1986 This next set is a small group of only administrative files, all pertaining to personnel policy. It is slightly curious that these files were maintained apart from the rest of the 1985-1986 materials, which contained Administrative files mixed in with the Government Relations material, including those related to personnel policy. Perhaps this set originally contained documents of a sensitive nature?

1987 The 1987 files are well represented, running from A-U.

1988-1990 This is the last set of files for this period, and they appear to be complete, ranging from A-W. Yes, this time the subjects went beyond U and into W: Washington Processing Center, and World Refugee Survey. This group appears to have been kept around for some of the next director’s tenure, because Saperia left in 1990 or 91, but there are a few things in here from 92 and 93.

Parting question: Do you know why the archivists didn’t just combine the files when there was more than one set? For example, the 1982 group of folders, and the 82-83 group. Leave your thoughts below, and we’ll discuss this topic in a future post.

On Sunday, February 6, 1983, brothers Zyama Volfson (80) and Samuel Wolfe (somewhere between 86 and 88) were reunited at Miami International Airport for the first time in over 70 years. They had not seen each other since Samuel Wolfe had left Bobruisk, Russia (now in Belarus) at the age of 16, when his brother was still a young child. This was in either 1911 or 1913, according to different sources. When he arrived in the United States, Samuel “Americanized” his name to Wolfe. He worked in various construction jobs, at breweries, restaurants, stockyards, factories, coal mines, and as a door-to-door salesman all around the eastern and mid-western parts of the country before settling in Chicago as a taxi driver in the 1920’s.

Chicago Sun-Times, February 8, 1983

Chicago Tribune, February 7, 1983

Zyama stayed in Russia, through World Wars I and II, the Russian Revolution, and the rise of Communism, until his wife died in 1980. He then decided to emigrate to the United States with his son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren. After settling in Brooklyn in 1981, Volfson decided to seek out his brother, knowing only that he lived near Chicago. He sought help from the New York office of HIAS, which helped put Volfson in touch with the Chicago office of HIAS. The Chicago office placed an ad in the Sentinel, an English-language Jewish newspaper in Chicago, in December 1982.

Wolfe’s daughter, Hodele Markowitz, saw the ad and contacted her father, who by then was spending most of his time in Miami Beach, Florida. Markowitz set up a brief telephone call between the brothers, after which she planned an in-person reunion. Zyama Volfson flew to Miami with his daughter-in-law, Lyudmila, to meet his brother, with whom he had lost touch 70 years before.

Photo from the Chicago Sun-Times, February 7, 1983. Samuel Wolfe is holding red carnations from his brother.

The charming story caught the attention of various newspapers in New York and Chicago, as well as several local morning television news programs. HIAS’ Chicago and New York offices also received their share of publicity, particularly from individuals looking to make their own family connections.

Some time ago, we were working with the HIAS Photo Collection when we came across a photo of two men in a matzoh factory. We jotted down a little note to ourselves so we could post it in a few months for Passover.

There is no caption unfortunately, but wouldn’t it be great if this turned into one of those stories where just the right person happened to see the photo on the internet, and could tell us something about it? Maybe someone with a detailed knowledge of the history of commercial matzoh production equipment? An archivist can dream.

When we went to pull the print, we noticed in the same folder a number of adorable photos of children playing and having fun. They don’t have anything to do with Passover, but they were too cute to keep to ourselves. Most are unlabeled, but the few captions that do appear cite Iran and Morocco in the mid 1960s. For more on HIAS in those countries, please see these earlier On the Rescue Front blog posts:

This last photo is one of the few in the folder with a caption. It reads:

IRAN. A GIFT FROM U.S. During the first six months of 1964 the Joint Distribution Committee distributed to needy Jews in Iran 280,000 pounds of Food-For-Peace supplies donated by the United States Government. These supplies, which included milk, flour, oil, beans and wheat, supplemented JDC’s feeding program which provides food for 8,500 Jews per month, 7,250 of them in school canteens. JDC receives funds for its welfare programs in 30 countries around the world mainly from the campaigns of the United Jewish Appeal. 1/1965.

In a previous post we wrote about the dedication of the Wilhelm Weinberg Hall of Records at the HIAS headquarters on Lafayette Street, in December 1958.

A press release from 1989, found in Executive Vice-President Karl Zukerman’s files during a survey of files from the 1980s before they were processed, indicates that HIAS sought in 1989 to make amends with Wilhelm Weinberg’s family for having dismantled the Hall of Records when HIAS moved to new headquarters on Park Avenue in 1965.

Rededication of Wilhelm Weinberg Collection, now at YIVO, 1989

YIVO received many of the HIAS files in 1965 when HIAS moved to a new office without room for the voluminous administrative and client files they had accumulated over 40 years on Lafayette Street.

If you read the letter from Ilja Dijour (in the link at the beginning of this post) to James P. Rice written soon after the 1958 dedication, it is clear that in fact the “meticulous evaluation and cataloguing [sic] of records” described in 1989 had been a problem since long before 1958. In fact, according to the excerpt from the 1918 survey (in the same link to the earlier post), even in 1918 the files were disorganized and difficult to access when needed.

Many of the HIAS files that were sent to YIVO throughout the 20th century, including many World War II-era case files, have been microfilmed and cataloged or listed. The files that form the HIAS collection at AJHS will be arranged and accessible at the end of 2018.

We have created a database to many of the post-World War II case files, which will indicate whether a file exists; because of privacy issues physical access to the files depends on parameters set by HIAS. The many thousands of case files that remain physically with HIAS are in need of weeding, rearranging and eventually digitization to create easier access, and HIAS is well aware of the importance of their continuing stewardship of this valuable family history.

It’s a costly project, and after all, records management is not specifically part of the HIAS mission. It is of course not a part of any not-for-profit’s mission. Records that are not legally or fiscally required to be retained become a huge financial burden. We hope in the near future it will be possible to further organize and make accessible the remaining HIAS files, allowing for privacy restrictions as necessary.

And then the challenge is the long-term preservation of their electronic records – something we all have to think about, professionally and personally … but not today.

Barbara Mae Watson, a diplomat and the first African-American and the first woman to serve as an Assistant Secretary of State, was born in 1918 in New York City to Violet Lopez Wilson, one of the founders of the National Council of Negro Women, and James S. Watson, the first black judge elected in New York State. She received her B.A. from Barnard College in 1943. In 1946 she founded a modeling agency, Barbara Watson Models, the first African American modelling agency in New York City, serving as the agency’s executive director until 1956. She received her law degree from New York Law School in 1962, after which she worked as an attorney for three New York City government agencies: the Board of Statutory Consolidation of the City of New York, the Office of the Corporation Counsel of the City of New York, and was the director of the New York City Commission to the United Nations from 1964-1966, when her career at the State Department began. Barbara M. Watson’s relationship with HIAS soon after she joined the United States Department of State in 1966, where she formed a particularly close friendship with Gaynor I. Jacobson, HIAS’ Executive Vice President, who also started in his position in 1966.

She headed the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Security and Consular Affairs from 1966-1974 and 1977-1980, serving under Presidents Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter. Barbara M. Watson was appointed ambassador to Malaysia in 1980, where she served until 1981, when she entered private law practice with two firms in Washington, D.C. which specialized in international law and business development and trade.

Letters between Gaynor I. Jacobson and Barbara M. Watson after Watson became the Ambassador to Malaysia, 1980.

Watson’s work brought her into close contact with HIAS for many years and she also attended various HIAS lectures and conferences, including as the guest of honor at HIAS’ 88th annual meeting in 1972.

Barbara M. Watson holding her Tree of Life award at the 1972 HIAS Annual Meeting. To her right is Harold M. Weinberg, Vice President of United HIAS Service.

At the 1980 Annual Meeting, Gaynor I. Jacobson invited Watson as his personal guest in honor of his retirement, which took effect January 31, 1981. In a letter to Watson after the 1980 Annual Meeting, Jacobson included the below picture of Watson and her two “ardent admirers,” reflecting their long years of friendship.